Cycling Ireland has been through a turbulent time over the last 18 months but its current chief executive, Chris Kitchen, believes it must move on and can significantly grow and get stronger. Kitchen believes the national governing body's membership can close to double and also says more development officers will be recruited to aid clubs across the island.
He told stickybottle while the organisation he now heads, on an interim basis, has gone through difficult times of late, it had been reformed. The current group of people running Cycling Ireland, he said, were committed and energised.
Kitchen said while the battle for funding would remain constant, it was vital a major title sponsor was secured and he also believes current or former members of Cycling Ireland - mainly those who had enjoyed success in business after their racing careers - could play a role in helping to fund the organisation via philanthropy.
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Individual projects, or ideas, could be set out in a pitch or proposal, with a funding target for each one. People of financial means, and who are well disposed to cycling, could be approached to commit the funds required for each project, he said.
"There's probably a lot of cyclists out there, and other people who have a passion for the sport," he said of those who might be approached and asked to consider giving money to develop the sport. "It's an untapped area. I think in cycling we haven't really looked to the philanthropic side; talking to cyclists who've done well in their business, and really well in their life, and saying 'Okay, this is a good project'.
"Obviously it has to have payback for them in terms of recognition. There's plenty of people who have got a bit of money and are cyclists," Kitchen said, adding projects in the high performance area could become "properties" that "people with a philanthropic nature" could support. Other "properties" could include an U23 road race project, a BMX series or even something in the coaching arena. It is an idea widely used by universities and charities, among others, to raise funds.
Need to "move on" after recent events
Kitchen speaks to stickybottle about a range of issues rather than simply funding. However, funding is a key issue for Cycling Ireland at present following the recent turbulence the organisation has had to negotiate, all of it self-inflicted. Broadly speaking, there were two major events that engulfed the national governing body.
Firstly, in the summer of 2020 false quotations (quotes from suppliers of goods and services) were used to support an application by Cycling Ireland for capital grants from the Department of Sport. Cycling Ireland was suspended for a year from applying for any further grants from the department. The matter was not publicised and by the time it eventually emerged - in the media in early 2022 - a second controversy had begun.
At the end of 2021, Cycling Ireland and EvoPro Racing began preparing a deal that would have seen the national governing body funding an academy for up and coming young cyclists to race within the team. When the board of Cycling Ireland heard the details of the mooted agreement with EvoPro it caused a major dispute within the organisation. The deal was ultimately aborted and since then Cycling Ireland has been reconstituted with a new board and president and a new chief executive. Former president, Liam Collins, and former chief executive, Matt McKerrow, were the Cycling Ireland personnel who began arranging the financial support of EvoPro Racing with the team's founders, Morgan Fox and PJ Nolan.
Collins was eventually among the departures as the other board members also left. McKerrow remained in his post for longer. But after the Cycling Ireland annual meeting in Monaghan Town at the end of last year, where he was grilled many members, he also departed the organisation. Kitchen took over as interim chief executive last December and will remain in the post until mid June. He will be replaced by James Quilligan, a racing cyclist with significant commercial and governance experience.
The fall-out from the two controversies resulted in significant expenditure on consultants' reports and legal fees. “Professional fees” increased to €706,129 in 2021, up from just €58,047 in 2020. And that total expenditure figure will be higher when the accounts for 2022 become available. Both controversies seriously damaged Cycling Ireland and also bled it of cash reserves. That happened just as inflation was spiking and the cost of doing business - including sending Irish teams to compete abroad - rocketed.
However, Kitchen insists the organisation has changed, saying it has a new group of people at the helm - working off a new governance system - who are determined to succeed and have the energy to do so.
"I don't want to comment on those (controversies) because I don't know enough about them," he said, adding the new board had been working very hard since early last year to regroup and get on with the job of developing cycling in Ireland. "I think it was a trying time for everybody on the board, to put in place all of these (new) measures, which have been done. We've now signed off on the code of good governance. And I think there's still a passion, a basic passion; I think we can revitalise and re-energise. This is history we're talking about, so we've moved on and we should move on. We need to build and rebrand."
Growth and opportunity for Cycling Ireland
Kitchen looked like a solid choice for interim chief executive given his experience. He is the former chief executive of Triathlon Ireland, stepping down from that role in March, 2020, after seven years in charge. When he left, Triathlon Ireland issued a release setting out how the organisation had changed in the period he was chief executive.
It said its membership grew from 7,600 to almost 19,000; the number of sanctioned events increased from 165 to 200; the number of clubs rose from 67 to more than 100; the organisation’s operating budget climbed from €1.18 million to €2 million.
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So with about 26,000 members are present, how many members does he think Cycling Ireland could realistically grow to?
He believes 40,000 is a realistic figure to aim for because that's the number of people the governing body has it its database as having dealt with - mainly as members of recipients of newsletters and so on - in recent years. Kitchen says while some people ask 'what has Cycling Ireland done for me?', he believed the insurance cover alone that came with membership was great value. Added to that, he said, members also received discounts from some of Cycling Ireland's partners. Furthermore, those who took out a membership were supporting cycling on both sides of the Border.
While Kitchen says he accepts the recent issues have been problematic, he does not believe nothing good had happened in recent years. In his view, even Cycling Ireland's public-facing side had improved by "a massive amount". By that he means the image the governing body presents of itself via social media, its website and also its coverage of the key events in the country - with photography, reports and live Tweeting of major races - reaching more people and keeping current members better informed.
He singled out two areas that were crucial, and he believed would be very exciting and beneficial, in the near future; hiring more development officers and the new indoor velodrome in Dublin.
He said development officers would be "more local and so more hands on on the ground". They would, he said, facilitate people getting more involved in cycling and help grow the sport's capacity in those regions where they worked. This would involve helping clubs to attract young members or being aware when and how clubs could apply for grants. Even in the area of safeguarding - child protection requirements - Kitchen said some people in clubs often believed this was a complex area. But development officers could cut through that with their know-how.
Most of all, he said, development officers were "facilitators" who helped to turn interest in cycling into club members, leading to bigger and better-funded clubs and a growing sport. Last year Rás Tailteann winner Daire Feeley - who is from Co Roscommon - was hired as Cycling Ireland's youth development officer in Connacht. More recently, just two weeks ago, Barry Scott was hired as Cycling Ireland's youth development officer in Ulster.
Kitchen said Cycling Ireland was now actively exploring other steams of income - including the philanthropy mentioned above - to recruit more development officers. He points out these were the cornerstone of how the GAA, for example, supports clubs and grows Gaelic games.
In terms of the new velodrome, Kitchen said it would bring an end to having to send high performance riders abroad to train. But, more than that, it would be a stake in the ground, and new image and home, for the sport of cycling in Ireland.
"It's about the profile of the sport," he said. "It can be the motivation to get somebody who is sat on a chair and think 'oh, I might go out on the bike tomorrow'. It (helps with) access to a wider audience. I think it's an opportunity to sell the sport. There's huge opportunities, not just for the (international level) track riders."
He pointed out the track could used to host events and would also mean the National Sports Campus in Blanchardstown, Dublin - where the velodrome will be built - would regularly host national and international cycling. That potential, he said, was clear to see when a round of the UCI Cyclocross World Cup was hosted on the campus last December and 8,000 spectators turned up. Essentially, Kitchen believes a state of the art new velodrome facility - and all the events that could be staged there - could also act as a similar draw and help put cycling on the map in Ireland in a bigger way than at present.
"That's one thing we've not done yet in Ireland, to have the opportunity, the potential, to (regularly) host major international cycling events." Ireland, he said, could aim to host a cyclocross World Cup round every year and even have a World Championships - track or cyclocross.
He believes a combination of the success of the UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Dublin last year - which is returning in November - coupled with the new velodrome suddenly demonstrates the major potential Ireland has in global cycling terms. Furthermore, staging those glamorous events can light a spark in young people, especially children, that could become a lifelong passion for, and involvement in, cycling.
Perhaps inevitably, the conversation concludes by returning to the recent controversies and Kitchen appealing to people to look forward rather back.
"It's a new board, like a new sport; a sport that's been though a lot of trauma," he says. "Let's put that trauma behind us. Give us a bit of patience, give us a bit of your confidence. We are working all the hours of the day to try and do what we can to put cycling back where it should be. That's what I want to do, is make the job for the new CEO easier, so (he) can hit the ground running in the sport."
If he had a message for members of the cycling community what would it be? "Give us a chance, is what I'd say. Let us have a go at it, let's get the sport back as the main focus, let's move the sport forward."
